Every two weeks, the Patriot will randomly pick a student from the directory, find out more about his or her life, and prove that every student has a story.

As soon as she stepped into her first creative writing class at the age of seven, sophomore Megan Greig knew that she was born to write.

“Something about the fact that we could take this piece of paper and use our minds to create an entirely new world on it fascinated me,” Greig said.

The class, offered for students in first through fifth grade, was one of Greig’s favorite classes in elementary school. “I remember a few times my teacher would catch me working on my project in a different class, because I would be so excited to start,” Greig said.

Another thing that keeps Greig’s writing skills up every year is NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. In the month of November, participants are challenged to write a 50,000 word novel, which roughly translates to 1,667 words a day.

Greig has been participating for the past four years, and although she has never reached the word count goal, she loves coming back and
trying harder every year. “It challenges you to do more work than you think that you can do,” Greig said.

The highest Greig has ever reached is 40,000 words, only 10,000 words away from the goal. “I felt very proud, but I was also disappointed that I couldn’t make it to the last 10,000 words. It’s a motivation for me now, though. I just think to myself, ‘If I could get to 40 thousand when I was only 13, I should be able to get 50,000 by now,’” Greig said.

For Greig, participating in NaNoWriMo is a way to track her progress as a writer. “I like looking back at the end of the month and seeing how far I’ve gotten,” Greig said.

Greig plans on participating in NaNoWriMo for years to come. “I’d like to think that I’ll just keep doing NaNo[WriMo] and never stop. Maybe I’ll have a year or two where I can’t do it so I have to take a break, but it’s one of those things that I just see myself doing well into my adult life,”
Greig said.

Ashley Beyer is a Lifestyles Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.